Managed Decline:

I look at the clock as my alarm wakes me up from my slumber; it’s 6:30am, shit; time to get going I guess. I drag myself out from my bed and take a quick shower, gotta keep it quick if I don’t want to miss my bus. There is a special bus that comes around in my condo community that makes a stop right in front of outside the buildings, much closer than walking to the road where it normally goes. I’m heading to the office today, as it’s early December right now and it’s time for our company holiday Christmas party, which myself and other co-workers are looking forward to. It’s been quite a crazy year for sure with mainly lows and more lows in pretty much every category of the world metric really but that doesn’t stop my optimism for a good party and most importantly good free food. By the time I get to Kennedy station it had started snowing and when you get to the subway this early in the morning you are usually welcomed by seeing homeless people sleeping in the subway cars. I was not disappointed, the homeless were there of course making themselves at home. I go to another car and find more inside, after two more cars I finally find one without homeless people sleeping inside. Given our harsh economic times, I don’t entirely blame the homeless for their bad luck but they really should go to a shelter to something for help or mental aid. I get to my corner seat and begin myself trying to sleep, which is kind of ironic because I was just trying to flee from people who were poor, not because they were sleeping, hah. The difference between the homeless and myself and others when it really comes down to it is money, the abundance or lack thereof in one’s name really. Sad, but that’s the state of the world today, money is king and ruler. While it is a pain to have to go into the office at least twice a week as it is company mandated, I am still thankful and lucky that I even still have a job, given the rapid shifts in the industry due to AI and socioeconomic political tensions around the world and in particular, with the United States; with Canada’s relationship going from a friendly reliable neighbor to a shady one that wants to steal all your shit and take over your house. It’s hard to comprehend all the crazy shit that has gone on this past year due to Trump and other stuff around the world, it honestly feels like it’s been two years already but it’s only been 12 months. When I get to the office, all the desks are mostly occupied, it’s the end-year party after all so it is to be expected. Luckily I booked my desk in advance a few days earlier so I had no problems finding a spot to sit. I login to my computer to attend my usual morning meetings; I am once again tasked to help out another team/project because shit has hit the fan and the project is in trouble of missing it’s said release date, which given my assessment, there is almost nothing that can prevent that from happening now, even with more people helping the project. Managers and leadership seem to think that if more people are working on a project, the work will get done faster, that is not always the case and in many ways, it actually hinders the project. The product I am working on is a core AI product for the company and there is a sense of urgency in getting shit done and polished for the next release window, which is later in the month. Nobody will say it in our tech channels but we have fallen behind in our AI offerings to our competitors and we are losing customers. Despite the urgency of the work, everyone in the office doesn’t give a shit and by 3pm, everyone begins to head to the lobby and or the 6th floor for holiday festivities where there is to be food and cheer. I go to the lobby and while there is a lot of people around all I see is two stations of cooks with pans re-heating up some penne pasta with a long ass line. Surely they must have some other food around, not just this custom pasta thing? I find a table with cheese and charcuterie board nothing else. Oh my god, is this really the only food they are serving us this year at the party? I head immediately up to the 6th floor, hoping that the offerings there are better but they are not. More cooks with pans heating up custom penne pasta. They have a few appetizers like egg-rolls and coleslaw but nothing else notable. They have some drinks and beer available but it is not properly chilled, and the beer when looked at the label, says it is expired. What the hell, this is the worst and cheapest food that I’ve ever had at a company Christmas party, like ever. I kinda can’t believe it. After waiting for half an hour to get my custom shit penne pasta I go over to my co-workers to chat about things. The usual discussion about work, the poor job market right now, AI and the like make the rounds, sadness of the Blue Jays, along with more general things going on with the world and the economy, the tariffs that Trump has imposed upon much of the world, including Canada and the trade war that has ensued because of it, Trump’s threat to make Canada the 51st state and the desire to avoid travel to the US for vacations and to buy Canadian goods when possible instead. Apparently today Trump announced that tourists to the US would have to reveal the past 5 years of their social media history to border security, to ensure that there isn’t any anti-Trump or ‘troublemakers’ coming into the country. Totally insane and unrealistic requirement. I suppose it’s not as bad as what ICE is doing tho, rounding up and deporting any non-white illegal immigrants without due process all throughout America. Apparently the US also seized some oil tanker coming out from Venezuela today, crazy, but then again, they also have been shooting up and bombing boats for no reason as well so who knows what’s all that about. The last thing we need is another war. As the clock ticks down during the party, people start to leave early due to the lack of good food and festivities, even my co-workers that I had been chatting with head out as well. The time is around 4:30pm now and the party is all but over now, it is basically dead. I go back to my desk to pack up and start thinking to myself, man, that was the worst company holiday party ever, the last time I had such a shit party I was laid off shortly after in the next month in January, this was in 2019. Fuck. I really hope I don’t get laid off, but with the company doing poorly and the stock tanking this year, it really feels like layoffs are coming, it’s just a matter of when. Because after all, there is no point in spending money on the party when a good portion of the employees may be laid off soon. I really hope I am wrong but given the decline of big tech over the past few years with AI and the likes, I’m bracing for the worst. I mean, with the current trajectory our world has taken, it would be completely be in sync with that trend. As I go outside and make my way to the subway station it begins to snow again; I wonder if the homeless will be present in the subway at this hour because of the snow.

As I board the crowded train it smells awful. I look past the bodies surrounding me and see a homeless man laying on a few seats, with his piss covering the floor.

Ahwell, buckle up for the ride I suppose, just like the world for the next three years; it’s going to be a ride.

—

When you think things couldn’t get any worse; they do:

As I reflect upon 2025 I can’t help feel that this was a terrible year, by all accounts and metrics I am correct, things are most definitely worst than last year. What I failed to predict and gauge however, was how bad things were really going to get. No one could have predicted the massive political turmoil that has happened domestically and the chaos and uncertainty that Trump would cause with tariffs, the trade war with all countries around the world for basically no reason but pure stupidity. The cost of everything has increased because of tariffs and Canada’s relationship with the US has been permanently damaged because of Trump. On the flip side, this was also another great fun year for personal travel, I visited London, Vancouver and New York again, down from the previous year but still respectable given the rough times we live in. But before we get ahead of ourselves with the good, let’s reflect upon all the bad/crazy things that have happened this year, and oh boy there is a lot of bad/crazy shit that has happened.

Bad/crazy things that have happened:

At the start of the year Trump imposes widespread tariffs on all countries around the world, including Canada and Mexico which is supposed to have free trade, completely ignoring that agreement. For instance, the tariffs imposed on china at some point reached absurd levels like 150-250% and the numbers changed daily and however Trump felt like it. The partnership between Canada and the US was damaged permanently as Trump continued to make comments how Canada should join the US as the 51st state, angering and shocking basically everyone in Canada. Framed half as a joke and half as a threat, the 51st state comments from Trump were culturally disrespectful and a form of political intimidation. Canadian leaders were forced into the uncomfortable position of publicly downplaying these comments to preserve trade relations, while privately acknowledging how damaging they were to public trust and relations. Republican officials close to Trump amplified nationalist messaging that portrayed Canada as weak, dependent, or freeloading further making matters worst. The imposed tariffs on Canadian industries such as lumber, steel and other raw goods have hurt Canadian businesses and have forced trade to go elsewhere instead of the US causing a loss of jobs and slowing of some industries like auto manufacturing. Auto sector was hurt significantly as parts for cars and autos flow between countries all the time, and the cost to do trade simply is not cost effective anymore, factories close and people lose their jobs. Provinces all throughout Canada do what they can such as stopping the sale American alcohol and booze in their stores to sent a message to the red states that largely make booze. Trump again throws the idea around about how Greenland should be become apart of the US, ignoring the fact that is already part of Denmark, upsetting europe and the EU in general in protest. In both instances for Canada and Greenland, Trump wants to claim land to extract natural resources like oil and gas, valuable minerals and metals, which hearkens back to a return to a more direct colonial mentality for the US. At the start of the year Elon Musk and the newly formed DOGE federal sham agency begin to systematically dismantle other government agencies deemed as ‘wasteful’ or ‘woke’ such as USAID, national parks and other science and defense agencies in a hacksaw random manner, all the while basically gaining unlimited access to government files and information unchecked, no doubt stealing confidential information for private use and sale to willing buyers. Elon Musk also does a nazi salute during Trump’s inauguration ceremonies, several times, which does not help the administrations ties to fascism and white supremacy. Teslas brand continue to become tarnished because of Musk and his reputation, with many selling their electric cars in outrage. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is appointed the secretary of health for the Trump administration, an anti-vaccine advocate during covid; his main goal is to ban vaccines; which is so bad. The rest of the Trump cabinet is full of crazy loyalists which have no place to be head of anything, all reason is gone as all he puts yes-men in positions of power who will do whatever Trump says and will bend the knee at first word. Science and health programs are de-funded, NASA has it’s budget slashed in half and is forced to close down many labs and library under Trump. The CDC is de funded and dissolved, which is the leading experts on pandemic and disease research guidance, now the US has nothing in it’s place. ICE which aims to detain and deport illegal immigrants goes unchecked in many US states, with unprofessional and hooligan behavior, they are more like a secret police force that just aims to seek out any non-white people they don’t like and have them deported. Even Canadian tourists and other visitors are deported in mistake because there is no due progress, if ICE rounds you up, you are on your way to being deported. Increased restriction and rules to travelers to the US, they are allowed to check your social media over the past 5 years to see if you are anti-trump and undesirable to prevent you from going into the country. In terms of domestic Canadian affairs as a result of Trump, Trudeau steps down and resigns as Prime Minister and leader of the federal Liberal party because he is very unpopular, for sure to lose the next election once the conservatives/NDP bring down the minority government which was going to happen soon rather than later. The liberals elect Mark Carney, former Bank of England governor with a lot of notable real world business experience and credentials to be the next leader and PM. With Mark Carney as leader of the Liberals, they call an election shortly after he is sworn in as PM and they win a very strong minority government, a political comeback miracle really as Pierre Pollieve massively drops the ball on his campaign for the conservatives as 6 months prior they were all but certain to win a super-majority. PP is unable to pivot from anti-Trudeau talking points when anti-American/anti-Trump sentiments is most high and Canadian patriotism is it’s highest in years, unable to denounce or say anything bad about Trump when it mattered the most in showing leadership and direction, especially with the 51st state stuff from Trump. Despite PP’s failings, the Conservatives as a whole do very well, actually gaining seats but still lose the election because all the NDP voters voted for Liberal to prevent PP and the cons from winning. Pierre Pollieve loses his seat in Ottawa in a laughable manner and has to have a conservative MP resign in the safest conservative riding in Alberta in order for him to get a seat back in the house. PP for some reason despite losing has not resigned, further bringing into question what the hell is he or the conservatives are doing. The last federal election devastates the NDP, losing most of their seats and only retaining 7 seats, losing official party status. Jagmeet Singh resigns the day of/after he is eligible to collect his government pension. Green party implodes, again, with only Elizabeth May elected as their only seat, further reinforcing that she is literally the party. The Bloc being block, just assholes in general who care only for Quebec but will side with Liberals because shit is tough with the US now. Peoples Party is non-existent, perhaps dissolving into nothingness as I haven’t heard anything about them since. Doug Ford is still corrupt as ever in Ontario as premiere but no one cares because he gives the illusion of being ‘captain Canada’ during a time when the federal election was still ongoing so no PM. He ends up doing stupid shit like removing speed cameras because he doesn’t like them because their removal are popular with his conservative base who also hates them, even though they work and generate alot of money for Toronto, and in his own way, directly interfering with Toronto, which he loves fuck with. Ford’s eagerness to do something to help Canada-US trade relations due to tariffs leads him to use Ontario taxpayer money to make a World Series Ad featuring the voice of beloved Republican president Ronald Reagan from past speeches to say he was against Tariffs and what Trump is doing. The Ad angers Trump so much he cancels all ongoing trade discussion with Canada which were progressing slowly, basically fucking shit up even more. Mark Carney, personally calls Ford to take down the ad but it is too late, it is aired in at least one or two games of the World Series before it is removed; waste of money. Far right political commentator Charlie Kirk is assassinated at a university campus during one of his ‘prove me wrong’ debate sessions, which Trump and others in the Republican/far-right use to point the finger at ‘radical leftist’ and continue propaganda campaigns but the rhetoric goes quiet as it’s discovered the shooter, was at least once a Trump supporter in the past. After much lobbying and delay the Epstein files are released late December, with many of the initial files fully blanked out redacted which is a joke. Despite this, the department of justice is wholly incompetent and thousands of digital files are released early which show only more redactions but leaving only democrat names or enemies of Trump left in the files. Photos of Bill Clinton, Micheal Jackson, Mick Jagger and other celebrities are released along with the files but without context trying to paint the narrative that many people were friends with Epstein. Other interesting files include a suicide note by Epstein and a birthday note to Epstein from Trump which more or less confirm what everyone already knew; that Trump was a close friend/associate of Epstein that both shared the same love of young girls/pedo and no doubt a flyer on the infamous ‘lolita express’ and Epstein’s private island. Further documents allude that girls were basically sold and slaves to Epstein and clients, basically the bad guys in Taken but real. Despite such evidence, nothing is done, Trump and his supporters are rattled but unfazed. Calls for another impeachment are forming again but probably nothing with happen until midterms if the house flips. Israel Gaza/Palestine conflict/war still ongoing with Trump taking a heavy sided favor in supporting Israel, the future is still unknown for what the outcome of this war will take. Trump or whoever manages his social media for the white house release a AI generated video of a Gaza rebuilt as a coastal resort city with Trump and Netanyahu partying and celebrating which outrages many in social media. The war in Ukraine is still ongoing, over 3 years in and there is still no end in sight, it has become a war of attrition for both sides as resources and manpower are depleted with both sides gaining territory and losing assets. With all the shit that is going on in the world with Trump and Gaza, Ukraine has taken a seat back in important news stories which is understandable but unfortunate. In Japan there is increased hooliganism by tourists and influencers leading Japan to further impose measures to reduce visitors such as closing off certain sections of tourist heavy Kyoto and other attractions. Some youtubers also try to paint Japan in a negative light in order to gain views forcing other japan focused youtubers to address the false narratives. Japan gets their first female prime minster but she is considered on the far right political spectrum at least by western standards and aims to promote nationalism and traditional and social values and anti-foreigner policies, which is not good. Her comments about Taiwan and protecting it’s sovereignty as a nation is key to Japanese national security angers china/CCP and increases political tensions between the two countries. CCP responds by banning it’s people, or at least heavily discouraging tourism to Japan due to the comments and other motions such as cancelling the promotion and events of Japanese artists and events in the country. When the Taiwan comments were made, a live Japanese musican’s concert was stopped mid-way though the set and other similar occurrences by the the CCP. A Chinese anime convention is banned from having Japanese IP such as cosplay, artists or dealers or anything related to japan which doesn’t make sense to the dismay and frustration of planned attendees, many cancel even going. China continues to face it’s own issues as a steady decline in it’s economy as the world slowly continues to move away from becoming dependent on it’s manufacturing capability as a result of Trump and worsening domestic and international affairs. Thailand and Cambodia continue to engage in a war over some famous ancient temple and other deeply seated disagreements regarding land and resources/borders drawn dating back to colonialism. The temple itself is in the center of it all and is getting damaged by gunfire and other arms. Back more on the domestic side of things, things are still getting more expensive as inflation has slowed but not stopped. The economy by all accounts and other metrics should be in a recession but the stock market doesn’t seem to feel that way as the cost of living can’t keep up with wages. Equability is so over, companies/governments continue to ramp down programs about diversity and inclusion as they do not match our current times of ruin. No one cares about indigenous affairs anymore because who cares in the face of hostile takeover from America. Misinformation and AI-generated content flood social media, making shared reality harder to maintain, while legit news is ignored because it does not fit the current narrative of the wealthy or the en-grained system and people have a hard time believing anything anymore because it could be fake. With the advent of generative AI images becoming a thing on social media in the case of Twitter, they have implemented image generation of user posts, allowing comments to tag their ai chatbot Grok to modify or edit images, while harmless at first, it is soon discovered that ai prompts to undress or re-render pictures of girls and children nude or in bikini starts appearing and with sizable outrage. Elon musk himself addresses the issue basically saying he doesn’t care and mocks those who protest against it. AI in general while a very useful tool, has it’s limitations and it’s problems, both from a social and education/productivity standpoint. Use of AI in more creative industries has seen increased push-back in the arts with people being anti-ai for creative writing, images and game creation understandably but they are fighting a losing battle. Several LLMs/AI generation tools have found a way to generate Studio Ghibli-like anime images, allowing anyone to use their trademark style and aesthetic for anything, hayao miyazaki is outraged as so is the studio but they cannot do anything as their name and reputation of their style is misused for nefarious and unauthorized purposes. The big tech industry is slowly coming to terms that AI is not as transformative as people envisioned, at least not in it’s current iteration now, so expectations of it as a tool have been adjusted, however despite that the big tech continue to spend billions on data centers and ai infrastructure/development. Due to the high demand of AI chips and related hardware, there is a massive shortage of RAM and state of the art graphic cards and memory, leading to existing inventories of RAM for instance to triple or quadruple in price or more, leaving consumers unable to buy shit. Youth culture continues it’s massive decline into ruin with the the onset of “6 7” a pure number meme of just saying “Six Seven” with the hand gestures of scale weighing invisible objects weight. The meme/joke is so stupid and without meaning, it literally has no meaning and that’s exactly the point, a reflection on the wasteland of culture and despair that our youth embrace. Popmart’s Labubu’s become a thing overnight, China’s greatest achievement really as for once they created something or an IP/character that is original and not bootleg shit that is actually popular and demand is worldwide. The little ugly plush keychain monsters appeals is the gacha gambling blindbox sort of thing, gotta pull that purple one you know. Due to the popularity of Labubu’s China does what China does best and makes bootlegs of it’s own IP and copy cat plushie merch ala “Lafufu’s”, by y tho. Due to the bleak future of today, most youth coming out of university/college have a hard time finding a job as most entry level roles are now being replaced by AI, which is a problem for long term. Cause youth have no jobs or future, they are sad understandably and understand that the world right now is not good. Because of this doomer mentality they are disengaged from politics at every level, both around the world and at home in Canada/US especially. Youth meme culture increasingly treated politics as irony, rage bait, or content farming, reinforcing cynicism rather than engagement hence “Six Seven”; they are so dead. Condo and real estate market is frozen/in decline right now with prices dropping but not fast enough for people still willing to buy as incomes has stagnated. While there is lots of supply now on the market, all the newer built condos are too small and people do not want, hence no one buying. The changes in local Canadian immigration policy due to the mistakes of letting too many Indians into Canada has resulted in many leaving after their Temp work/student visa expires and hence leaving their condos/rentals. The Eglinton LRT is still not complete, marking over 14-15 years since the project began and been in active construction which is absolutely horrendous. The Finch West LRT opens after 6/7 yearrs of construction and it is shit, super slow and has many outages, people are disappointed and people mocking/complaining about it, a sad preview of what’s to come for the Eglinton LRT’s people fear. A man makes a video outrunning the Finch West LRT’s route, beating it by 8 minutes. The Delta hotel near my condo is still a homeless shelter, fuckkk, I guess we still hooliganville still. Nothing has been built still after Market Village was blown up, what the fuck still. Woodside square is still a kiddie circus with dinosaur bullshit gimmick with new more additions such as a helicopter and other nonsense. Hudson Bay Company, the Canadian company with over 355 years of history behind it’s name and existed long before Canada was even a country finally goes bankrupt and all stores are shutdown with the company seizing to operate. A major blow to department stores as it was basically the last holdout after Sears, Eatons and others died in Canada. The department store is dead due to our current times and shopping culture, it is so over. Ikea, Decathalon and Toys R Us are shutting down/leaving STC, what the fuckk. Guess scarbrough is just too ghetto for Ikea, everyone just goes there for cheap food, no one buys shit since it’s not a full store like in the North York location. It is bad for large big box stores. Canada post strikes again midyear because they are dying and losing money due to union demands and unwilling to change in the current world, the Canada post strike is not effective as package delivery by Amazon and other retailers move away from their services and go private carrier like Puto/UPS some other shit. Canada post strike is resolved and no one is really that happy and mail/package delvery somehow gets worse. My local post-office within a Rexall is closed because the store itself is closing. My new post-office is inside some ghetto drug mart literally called “drug mart” or something near STC, I don’t really like it because it’s further away and has not as good food around. Canada’s largest airline, Air Canada has flight attendants strike in summer for a few days in late Aug, causing chaos and confusion for all travelers, leaving some to cancel their flights and trips, others become stranded in foreign destinations. The strike is resolved and everyone is still kinda pissed. Due to tariffs and the times, the shipping price of goods from Japan has increased significantly, not just DHL but even surface shipping and air parcel, shit. In terms of entertainment, no new star wars movies this year again or series because Disney doesn’t know what to do still. Marvel had a few movies come out like Thunderbolts and Fantastic 4 but they are just ok, no mega hits. No mega mainstream hits in movies this year if you count the latest Avatar movie that only some people care about. New stranger things came out and no one cares. Tomonobu Itagaki, the creator of dead or alive fighting game series and ninja gaiden dies, sadge. Controversial wrestling legend, Hulk Hogan dies.The following other notable people/celeberties also died this year, Pope Francis, David Lynch, Gene Hackman, Val Kilmer (iceman), Ozzy Osbourne, Giorgio Armani, Rob Reiner, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Marc Garneau, Ken Dryden, George Foreman and I’m sure many others. I saw the Netflix DMC fake anime animated series, it was horrible in almost every possible way, doing a disservice to the IP and franchise in general. In the world of Vtubers, this was a pretty bad year, without going too much into depth, a ton of Hololive talents graduated Ceres Fauna, Sakamata Chloe, Murasaki Shion, Nanashi Mumei, Gawr Gura, Hiodoshi Ao, Amane Kanata for various reasons but all graduated on amicable terms. The most impactful is Gura graduating/leaving hololive, as she is the most subscribed vtuber in the world as her existence contributed massively to the vtuber boom and popularity during covid years. Sadge, but this was a long time coming for Gura. The other talents that have left and probably won’t be coming back as vtubers probably are Shion, Mumemi, Ao and Kanata, as their departures were related to health/lifestyle reasons. Outside of hololive, VTuber agency VShojo experienced a dramatic collapse after a wave of departures and financial controversy: one of its biggest talents, Ironmouse, publicly left the agency alleging VShojo failed to pay her and didn’t deliver over $500,000 raised for charity, which triggered widespread backlash and prompted most of its roster to quit and go independent. Within a short period, the mass exodus of talent and revelations about unpaid dues led the company’s leadership to confirm it had run out of funds and ultimately shut down entirely. The CEO of vshojo had a personal hate vendetta/grudge against hololive in particular which was only revealed after the company’s collapse and made every effort to defame and shit on hololive and it’s talents/tried to pouched talents as-well. Mint Fantome, formerly Pomu of Nijisanji reveals that she was a shadow employee of Vshojo for over a year unknown to the public/fans as she was working with Vshojo on being part of a vtuber idol unit for them which is now defunt/failed project. Sinder–Nanoless vtuber drama in the indie sphere was devastating towards the indie scene as VTuber Sinder was accused of manipulation and spreading negative narratives about other creators by a former collaborator (Nanoless), resulting in significant community fallout and lost followers. An example is with Bao the Whale vtuber in which Sinder behind the scenes manipulated her artist to not produce or cancel new skins/models for Bao because she thought she was competition even though publicly they were friends, Bao is devastated as a result of his backstabbing and betrayal. A collab cafe in Japan involving Mikeneko’s appearance causes several VTubers pulled out of a livestream event after the announcement that Mikeneko (formerly Rushia) would be participating, sparking debate about reputations and social dynamics within the community. Filian, the producer of the VTuber Awards dropped out of producing the event due to controversy around Filian’s alleged russian money links, resulting in strained industry relationships and public debate. TwitchCon happened and was hell for vtubers attending such as Iron mouse and many others as they were forced to demask and show their real identity to security and other incidences like organizers throwing away gifts meant for talents and the like. During that same event, famous streamer Emiru was assaulted/hugged by a random stalker and TwitchCon organizers/security did nothing. Several other vtuber companies also get shut down because no money. Nijisanji EN vtuber Aster is basically terminated/shadow terminated after proof arises of him being sex pest to other talents and sexual harassment. Another Nijisanji EN talent Twisty is also terminated for being racist towards brown fans says she hates them and they smell like curry, in a hidden audio leak with other off-stream collab recording. In sports related events, the Blue Jays somehow make it to the world series but are defeated in a heartbreaking game 7 at home against the LA Dodgers and the superior pitching of Yamamoto and star power of Shohei Otani, mr baseball god in our current times for their second consecutive world series wins. The Jays loss is devastating as there was no less then 3-4 times in the last game where we should have won it but the baseball gods said no, Jays are not allowed to win and gave us every possible bad play, gamble and dice roll outcomes to allow for the Dodgers to come back and win it in overtime with Yamamoto literally taking a page from a sports anime/movie story and coming back in the final innings even though he pitched yesterday just hours ago. What’s even worse is that this game 7 shouldn’t have even happened at all, they should have won in game 6, and again in that game the baseball gods say no, Jays are not allowed to win even though we were in the lead for the majority of that game too. Not good, super sad and disappointing after finally making it back to WS after 32-33 or so years. Leafs are shit worse in league think. Raptors are still rebuilding, also bad for the most part but they sometimes have streaks. FC have no idea. Argos probably won and no one cares. Doug Ford wants to build a tunnel under the 401 because he thinks it will ease traffic even tho the cost will be astronomical and take forever, he earlier rejected the idea in his first term but he is still trying to sell the idea, dumb waste of money. Wayne Gretzky is a traitor as it becomes known in photos and behavior that he is a mega big Trump supporter donning a MAGA cap and says nothing when Trump makes his 51st state comments about Canada, he says literally nothing and gets his wife to make them for him. People are disappointing in him since his father was such as great Canadian, a massive stain on his legacy in Canadian culture and Canadian hockey. TikTok still exists, even though it was supposed to be banned in the US, but I guess China bribed Trump enough to leave them alone. Twitter is worse than ever before due to Musk and rampant Ai usage and ‘free speech’ absolutism but not for thee. Facebook is whatever, it’s dead to me. Jamaica is hit by a powerful storm and suffers major damage on the island. No one cares about the environment or global warming anymore because war and political/economic turmoil in our times prevail. Early in the year major wildfires in California basically destroy an entire community close to Hollywood, sage. The stock market goes up and down erratically this year according to Trump’s plans for tariffs which in a way is a form of stock manipulation which his family and friends play as inside traders. Massive stock market drop initially causes many people to panic sell their stock assets, including myself which I also sold fearing for the crash we had been waiting for but it somehow gradually rebounded. The overall stock market doesn’t make sense anymore as per usual as it’s fueled by vibes and whatever Trump says now as American equities are now no longer a sure thing and potentially unstable.  In general crypto is in shambles as it fluctuates more than ever and the wider shitcoin market is in a bear market now. Bitcoin is doing fine tho, with it being up to over 126k right now down from it’s all time high of 173k in nov. At work the Head of Design was pushed out by my Company, the one that I was hired under that did the massive hiring, he did not want to leave but they probably did not renew his contract so basically forced to leave anyways, sadge. Since his departure my job has shifted dramatically  as I spend less and less time reviewing and working with designers and more code with AI tools than ever before as a developer/coder; our company is making it mandatory to use AI tools, it’s part of our goals and OKRs. The project that I am working on is a core AI product for the company but having a look at the code now and how it works/looks, it’s kinda bad and unreliable and the teams working on it have poor communication and don’t talk to each other, leading to lots of rework and things breaking when teams commit changes to the master/main branches. It’s just not very optimal. On that end, the fear of being laid off still persists as per usual in January and with the week prior the holidays, we had our Principal Engineer come in a do a boot-camp for all the UXE’s in the Toronto office for a week, basically trying to up-skill up and increase our knowledge of development because I think in the future we are expected to be doing more and use AI to fill out knowledge and productivity gaps which while welcome in concerning to a degree. We still have to come in twice a week now but for some locations it’s actually three, the only reason why we don’t have three days in is because our office can’t support that many people in all at once. Bad. Went to London, shits so expensive what the fuck. Went to Vancouver, nice but wouldn’t visit again unless for a reason or convention/event. New York third time again this past year but I question if I can continue going here every year as Trump and shit is ongoing making tourism harder for people. I have stopped writing seasonal anime reviews because I have gotten too lazy to do it now especially with at least a third or quarter of every season being iseaki trash or gay idol shit, sad but good things must come to an end. It was a good 10 year or so year run. I guess I’ll just do a single yearly anime review ranking post like I usually do now, it’s easier and more meaningful. However, one punch man anime season 3 is considered one of the worst anime’s made in recent times due to it’s AI generated imagery and poor animation, the meme panned garou slide on the hill indicate how lazy the studio producing it really are. My health is so-so, went to the doctor for the first time in a long time and basically said i’m fat and need to lose weight, have high blood pressure and at risk for gout due to high purines diet, said to avoid red fish like salmon because they high in purines and such but man, I like salmon and tuna, reduce sodium intake. Sadge. Bros getting older but also getting more health issues, sadge. My condo is running out of space due to all the stuff and goods I buy, need to figure out how to display and arrange my figures and merch/souvenirs better or else they will be stuck in bags/boxes forever. I need a new bigger condo but too lazy to find a new one since it’s so much work and the market is down/hard to sell my current place if I do move. I brought Stellar Blade, the korean made Nier/Souls-like clone but I haven’t had the time/desire to play it yet still, even tho I said I would play it in 2025, I still didn’t; same for Tsukihime remake, I still didn’t play it yet. I brought the new Dynasty Warriors Orgins game but I could not finish it because it became to repetitive and boring unfortunately for me, and also too gay, it’s not meant to be gay but the relationship because the main characters and your musou bros makes it seem that way how the game is designed for story/character relationship buildin My grandma continues to lose her mind towards insanity, my existence is questionable these days in her smoothing brain, sometimes I am my dad. My sister sometimes doesn’t exist or become my aunt in her mind some days. Dad slowly loosing his sanity taking care of grandma, it’s rough again this year, not getting any better.

And yea, that’s all I can think of at the top of my head. I know it’s not a lot but you get the idea. Last year I said that 2024 was a bad year, well, 2025 was even worse in pretty much every metric and category you can think of, largely because of Trump and the shifting balance of power in the world because of US insanity and instability. Well then, aside from the wholesale continued ruin of our times, what good things happened this year?

Good things that have happened:

Over the past few years, things at work have stayed fairly steady. As of now, I’ve been with the company for about 3.5 years, which feels like a solid milestone. I’ve also established my brand and cred as someone who contributes and can get shit done. While anything can happen, I don’t think I will get laid off, but with the economy and our company tied to the AI bubble, who knows. If it happens it happens, there is nothing I can do to stop that so if it does happen, I might try to take a break longer than usual before looking for another job, since besides, there may be no more places hiring either. Under my new managers/boss they have left me largely self operating which is good but I think things are changing at the company now, not for the better but who knows. I got a normal quality of life raise I think 2-3% and a larger than normal bonus for 2024’s performance. For this past year in 2025? I am not so sure, I expect nothing or minimal changes, that is, if I am still employed. My performance review for this past year will probably be the same or worse, they changed the grading system for it because they don’t want to give out bonuses and such cause no money so yea, whatever. The work I get now is challenging but it’s good to learn, gotta upskill in our AI powered world you know despite the project I am working on now kinda bad, I still like working on it because it is a core AI product, I can write that on a resume one day if I ever need to. Going into the office still sucks but they have now this new thing where you can “Work from Anywhere” for like 4-5 weeks a year. You can set that “Anywhere” to be at home, noice. I made use of it near the end of Dec, nice to be at home when it’s cold outside. I still technically have unlimited vacation and I used it this year to travel to a few places, not as crazy as 2024 but it’s still something, want to reduce my travel to the US you know cause Trump, ICE and crazy ass travel shit you know. I went to London, Vancouver and New York again this past year in 2025 and they were all great trips. London was great and I got to see all the bait shit that I wanted to see because I never been there, went to all the museums and shit, saw Stonehenge, some small towns, big ben, A nice boat, HMS Belfast, good shit. Ate lots of good food and had a great time overall with my sister leading the way since she has been here before. Went to Fallow, a youtuber chefs higher than average restaurant and it was pretty good shit, unique. Nothing else more to comment on here, check out my travel posts. Vancouver was cool since it’s also a place I’ve always wanted to visit but never got to and I can say it’s nice, in it’s own way, not big like Toronto but it’s great if you like parks and outdoor active lifestyle but very expensive food and living stuff. Richmond where rich chinese people are rich, nice night market but expensive tho, nice Alberdeen chinese mall, wish we had something like this. Good chinese food/seafood, experienced Ding Tai Fung, the real one actually, not bootleg one besides Sushi Legend/Bestco. New York was great again, despite the political turmoil of Trump and the world, I still enjoyed AnimeNYC immensely on the third time solo travel to the city primarily for the Hololive EN concert, ALL-For-One at the Radio City Music Hall a huge venue, which I was able to get tickets for. The show was great despite it being after all the major graduations from Hololive earlier in the year. AnimeNYC itself was bigger and better than it’s ever been to both it’s detriment and growth depending on what you are looking for, still good in my opinion. I also was able to visit the 9/11 memorial museum this time to finish what I could not the previous year and saw the twin tower fountains. Not as ambitious and grand as last year since I did not have as much free time as before since I was here mainly for the concerts but I did mange to go to Katz for some world famous pastrami, and while overpriced, it’s worth it both for the food and the tourist experience. This year was also not as grand as last year’s four trips which was insanity, mainly because lack of events and trying to limit US travel but still good i’d say. I haven’t played Guilty Gear like at all much this year, I just hopped on when Unika released and the new characters like Dizzy etc, I have largely quit playing for now but maybe in the future I can pick it back up again. Guilty Gear Strive anime happened this year, while 3d anime it was still good because it continued the story after Strive’s story which was amazing plot progression and world expansion/new characters. Gud shit but only if you finished/watched the Strive story mode. I still play Azurlane, china boats though I have largely zoned out skip the story since it’s just china bullshit nonsense trying very hard to not do time travel and have some convoluted singularity/alternate simulation universe thing going on or whatever. Core game is still good and I am a god have almost everything but the game’s focus is now just to design/make attractive anime girls so they can make figures and sell merch and L2d skins that are very lewd. I have no problems with this and I enjoy it but I have been playing this for like 6/7 years now and it’s age is beginning to show, even with major UI and new modes added. They are trying to put some 3d shit like my room kind of thing where you can interact with your boat girls and an animal crossing clone within the game in 3d but it just doesn’t seem right, the core game is 2d auto battle shoot-em up and I hope they don’t stop delivering that. In FGO I continue to be a god, I still largely get most of all the servants I want this year and even manged to get some of my favorites to np2 because I can/want to. The best new servants for me are Drako, Tiamat, Aesc/Summer Morgan, Summer Castoria, Summer Melusine and Uesugi Kenshin. I kinda regret pulling so hard for Summer Melusine since she’s not that good when I got her but yea, I used all of my gem and went to pity; had to replenish using fragments which is unfortunate but what can you do. I also pulled a bit for a regular Melusine to get her to NP2 since I use her alot and she is so strong. LB7 story finished and it was OK, a bit mid but still so many questions unanswered and unresolved, it was just preparing for the next phase. We are now in the Ordeal Call arc which can be considered a filler period in FGO before the final Part2/the lost belt story gets wrapped up. In FGO JP this has happened in Dec and the story for part 2 is done. The future of FGO long term is uncertain so who knows if they will write a new story a part 3 or just end of service the game. While it would make sense to end the game, it simply makes too much money still so who knows. I picked up a new mobile gacha game this year unfortunately, Umamusame, and it’s incredibly fun and an umazingly good time sink. Came out in JP in 2021, this shit took 4 years to get made into global/English and now everyone knows all about Japanese horses and horse racing via cute uma idol racing girls. Game is so good, it won best mobile game of year by the game awards for western audiences, 4 years after it came out in Japan. Wow, good shit, will play this for as long as I am interested. It has eaten up alot of my time normally spent on FGO and other console “real games” to be honest as it’s simply more fun in my opinion, although a very active game, no auto-battle/auto-moade yet but they have an accelerated scheduled trying to catch up to JP, which will probably still take many years, so yea, there is no shortage of content and umas/cards to pull. Marvel released the first trailers to the new Avengers movies coming out later in 2026, Doomsday and it basically seems they are trying to go back and make a sequel to Endgame, since their efforts to elevate new heroes doesn’t seem to be working/failing, nice and kinda jokes. I saw fantastic 4 movie, it was good, nice. I saw alot of anime movies this year in person such as Gundam Guuuqucckk whatever intro movie and it was cool, nice intro to the anime to begin. Chainsaw man movie Reze arc was incredible, probably one of the best anime action movies I have ever seen, definitely a watch for animation and everything, just so good, best anime movie i’ve seen this year and best in person movie too. Ace banger song too done by the Autist, who makes good songs for anime, gud shit. There was also a lot of good/solid anime this year but I can’t remember off the top of my head, just have t wait until I do my yearly anime ranking/reviews since I have stopped doing seasonal anime reviews. This website has become something of a real travel/experience photo blog of my travels/experiences and I am OK with that. My family is still alive and doing ok, my sister is alive and doing good, I have not died yet and I am doing alright despite going to the doctor for the first time in many many years. Despite telling me to lose weight cause I am fat and have high blood pressure/risk of gout, all of my other stats and vitals as my doctor calls it is “fine’ or “perfect” he says which is kinda incredible really. Since then I have changed my eating and sugary drink habits and am eating healthier and I have indeed lost some weight with that alone, which is great, if you cut out soda, that’s already doing alot, which is sad because I love coke and pop. I am even trying to stop drinking diet soda but it’s hard, but it’s hard to do. Hopefully this will also help in reducing my blood pressure as I am not on meds for that yet, but ideally I would like to prevent that as my doctor says. Using AI is great at work as it has increased my work and speed at which I can do things, good shit. While the vtuber industry had a really rough year again with the loss of huge talents like Gura from Hololive, many of them have reappeared as indie vtubers doing their own thing independently now which means they are not totally gone/dead. Hololive itself has has a very successful year despite the graduations of many popular talents, having a successful HoloFest and big EN concert in new york which I attended; they really are focusing on music and shows now for talents along with merch which is good. There was no new EN/JP/ID gen this year which is a bit surprising which makes FlowGlow from last year still the newest hololive Gen, wow. Hololive itself has had many collaborations this year with the likes of McDonalds, street fighter and even most recently Coke in Japan, showing they really are getting very popular and mainstream. Hololive Night at LA Dodgers stadium again this year more or less confirms that as long as hololive has these events, they will probably win the world series. If Dodgers host a Hololive night, they are currently 2/2 in winning world series. Let’s see if they do it again. Suisei sang the ending song for the new Gundam anime this year and an insert song in the movie, wow. Miko has a huge concert to great success just like Suisei, she is now a very popular talent, up there with Suisei, Marine, Pekora, Subaru. Outside of hololive I have started watching more indies and Phase Connect members, in particular Shiina Amanogawa as she is jokes/funny and very relatble, also because autist and sadbee. Dokibird continues to thrive post Selen trauma which is great and MintMaid despite the Vshojo collapse still debuts her vtuber idol unit as they and other to-be members do it anyways. Saba, formerly Gura returns as an indie shortly after leaving hololive and is great success although her design isn’t as good as Gura in some regards and is kinda bootlegy. She still does not stream that much but at least she’s still around, just like Fauna, who also debut as NimiNightmare to fans delight. Nimi was also the first to announce publicly that she was getting married, which explains her departure from hololive in many ways and nature. Holostars is miraculously still alive, being supported by Bettel and some of the newer male gen’s like Jurrard and Ruze. Axel picking up some steam with his Umamusame streams since he actually legit likes japanese horse racing and played the game already in JP. Depite the Trump affect and markets crashing after tarrifs, for some reason everything kind of bounced back and still went up over time. Canadian stock and equity actually outperforms the S&P500 for the first time in like decades/years which is incredible, same for the rest of the world stock, perhaps a reflection that people want to put their money elsewhere outside the unstable US now. Due to shit shortage and Ram, Nvida is still making bank, as well as all the other tech companies, despite the so called AI bubble, whether it’s a bubble or not remains to be seen at this rate, no one knows, and no one cares as long as line goes up. I caved and brought Youtube premium to not have ads on my tv when is stream youtube via chromecast, it also gives Youtube Music which is like spoify but not as good but still good enough for me, good shit, all music is there via youtube videos and otherwise. Saw nice eva concert live orchestra in Toronto, noice. Alot of good games came out, many of them indie made such as Hollow Knight: Silksong the long waited sequel came out and it was good and hard. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the french made indie jrpg final fantasy clone won best game of the year and has critical acclaim. Silent Hill F came out and it was good, same for Death Stranding 2. Pekora of hololive is in Death stranding as Kojima likes her and is part of a quest line, jokes, good for both. Jake Paul, bastard youtube influencer has his Jaw double broken in a boxing match. Puff Daddy “Diddy” is sentenced for his sex trafficking shit. Epstein files are released for the world to see how much of a criminal Trump is and other famous/powerful people despite redactions. So yea, I think that’s about it from what I can remember from 2025 in terms of good things, which honestly is not a whole lot, better than nothing I suppose.

In being consistent with our times of making America ruined again by Trump and the reshaping of the current world order, 2025 has somehow bested 2024 as the worst year in recent memory, like it’s not even close but by significant margin at that. It makes we want to go back to 2020 during the covid pandemic times, at least in those early days of the pandemic, there was some hope of things getting better, today? Not a single bit of hope for a better tomorrow in the world. I can almost guarantee asking anyone at the end of this year if this was a good year and they most definitely will say no, it was a horrible year. We are in like 3 years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, 2 years in with the Israel/Gaza conflict/war, China eyeing Taiwan and thinking about making its move, shit hitting the fan everywhere around the world and the one superpower that could potentially hold things together shits’ the bed and goes full retard, America has lost it in 2025, the respect, status and soft power it has commanded for decades, perhaps for over a century+ now is slowly but surely being undone and eroded by Trump and his administration of far right crazies. Americans wanted Trump to focus on domestic issues like making things cheaper and cost of living/jobs but why is he threatening foreign countries with annexation and military force, does he want to go starting more wars? Something which nobody wants but apparently America can’t live without? Part of me feels Trump never understood soft power and only understands aggression and military power and subservience by others, hence his behavior, he does not believe anyone or any country should be equals, he and America must rule over others, have power over them, that is I think the core internal unspoken meaning of MAGA or “Make America Great Again” to Trump it’s “Make America Great At ruling over others again” which applies both to his domestic and foreign policy. The fact that Trump’s actions and 51st state comments and behavior towards Canada has single handily changed the trajectory of the 2025 Canadian Federal election to have the Liberals under Carney winning again after Trudeau resigns in nothing short of a political miracle that can only have happened because of Trump. PP’s downfall from near certain super majority government vanished the moment he couldn’t say anything bad about Trump, revealing where his beliefs and loyalties truly lie, as a Trump simp though and through.

Last year, the greatest concerns I had about Canada was too much immigration and the cost of living in Canada, lack of jobs and shit, economy fairly standard normal complaint shit; this year however? nobody even cares about that shit anymore because everyone is just concerned if we are able to even exist as an independent sovereign country and if we are able to do anything about it if Trump just decides to take over Canada one way or another either economically or by military force. The same thing is happening being said in all countries around the world which have traditionally been American’s ally, can we even trust the Americans anymore? And unfortunately I don’t think so, at least not while Trump is president at the wheel. The fact that the backlash to Trump and the Epstein files release has been so muted/weak is testament to how everything in the media has been dialed up to 200%, crazy ass shit which would normally be cause for outrage, no one cares anymore, because it’s not as bad as “x” or other event or controversy/news. Trump is most certainly diving America towards the path of fascism and corporate oligarchy, I just hope Americans and their democrat politicians grow a spine and try to do something and stop playing by the rules, the rules don’t matter anymore, they are being re-written to suit Trump and his allies in shaping America and a new world order where America tries to rule over others directly. For fucks sake in the news I am hearing about Carney and other world leaders meeting and forming a “Coalition of the willing” without America/Trump, what does that even mean? The fact that we are talking about this means America can no longer be counted on as a reliable ally at all and may very well under Trump become an enemy of the world for that matter.

For me however, it was once again a solid personal gain year despite the insanity of our times but as I get even older, I am reminded by the fact that yes, we are not living in good times, so might as well enjoy things while they are still here, before they are ruined, which has been the theme/direction I have been going for the past 3-4 or so years since covid lock downs ended. I am not sure if I will travel much in 2026, with the current state of the world, I will try to but who knows what might happen. The only thing that we can hope for is if America can turn things around in the US midterms coming in 2026 which can shift the balance and hopefully tip it in favor of democrats to slow down Trump, but then again, I am not confident Americans will make the right choice, they didn’t when they elected Trump again to begin with, but we’ll see.

I mean shit is already pretty bad in the world, how much worst can it get?

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On January 3, 2026, the US has staged a large scale military operation on Venezuela and captured/apprehended it’s president on charges of drug trafficking, effectively taking control over Venezuela’s government and the country primarily to access it’s rich oil resources.

._.

Please, 2026… no…actually… it’s not enough…need more…ruin.. not Nazi Germany enough.

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On January 7, 2026, a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in her vehicle during an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis causing widespread outrage and protests for the innocent killing. The resulting chaos has masked the fact that ICE agents were camping at schools waiting for people and has closed schools in a semi-lock-down state.
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Perfect.

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In Ruin We Remain